SALVADORAN RIGHTIST ABDICATES PARTY LEADERSHIP

Roberto D'Aubuisson, the standard-bearer of El Salvador's militant and often violent right, stepped down Sunday as the head of his party, the National Republican Alliance.

His resignation is widely believed by diplomats and politicians to be a tacit recognition that he has outlived his usefulness as party leader. They also feel he has become a liability to his backers, including important sectors of the country's military, businessmen and landowners.

The party has been weakened by internal squabbling, desertions, loss of funds and a crushing defeat in the March legislative elections.

But D'Aubuisson said his resignation would not end his role in Salvadoran politics. He told some 800 delegates at the party's national convention Sunday that he would head a new political institute to be formed by the party soon.

At the institute, he said, he plans to train young leaders, drawing on "my experiences in Salvadoran politics" and on "everything I learned in Taiwan." D'Aubuisson took "courses in political warfare" in Taiwan a decade ago, one of his aides said.

Alfredo Cristiani, a 37-year-old coffee producer who joined the alliance only a year ago. was unanimously chosen its new president for a two-year term. Cristiani studied business administration at Georgetown University and has headed the powerful associations of coffee and cotton growers here.

Like other landowners in the party, he lost large parts of his holdings to the agrarian redistribution program several years ago.

The tall, soft-spoken and polished Cristiani seemed a sharp contrast to D'Aubuisson, a small and wiry figure whose fiery and uncouth speeches would often arouse large crowds.

The party's change of command, which took place at a hotel here, seemed a low-key finale to D'Aubuisson's stormy leadership.